


Survive a Fall

by pterawaters



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Grief, M/M, Moving On, Multi, Past Steve/Peggy/Bucky, Triad Verse, Triadverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 18:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1657757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve knows his relationship with Peggy and Bucky is done and gone. He tries to move on, but it's difficult when the heartbreak of losing Bucky is still so fresh in his mind. Bucky's reappearance does nothing to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survive a Fall

**Author's Note:**

> If you're new to Triad Verse, you can learn more about it [here](http://triadverse.tumblr.com/post/86154454124/triad-verse-faq).
> 
> ETA: I am awful and totally forgot to thank [patchfire](http://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire) for beta reading this for me. Everyone should check out Patch's work!

The first time Steve visits Peggy after he wakes up in the future, she doesn't recognize him at first. "I know," he says, heart breaking at how much of her life he's missed. "I'm a ghost."

All of a sudden she goes clear-eyed and asks, "Where's Bucky? Wasn't he with you?"

Sadly, Steve shakes his head. "Peggy, Bucky's gone. Remember?"

Her face falls. "Oh, yes. He fell." She looks down at her hands and furrows her brow. "Did I fall? It feels like…like you weren't here."

Steve saves his tears for after he returns to his SHIELD-assigned apartment.

He doesn't see someone he has any interest in (aside from, vaguely, Natasha), until he starts running around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. It looks remarkably the same as it did when he passed through DC during his war bonds tour. Older, of course, and the buildings surrounding the pool have changed, but the Washington Monument and its reflection in the pool haven't. It makes Steve feel more at home.

One of the other runners who frequents his route is a man who looks too old for his years. Despite the different color, his eyes remind Steve of what he sees in the mirror. Steve doesn't see any rings on either of the man's hands, so he takes a chance and strikes up a conversation. He gets the man's name – Sam Wilson – before Natasha picks him up for a new mission.

In the car, Natasha asks Steve, "You working on getting a date?"

Steve raises an eyebrow at her. "That a problem?"

Shaking her head, Natasha drives the car forward. "I've got no problem. I've only been trying to set you up with all the primer couples I know for three months. No big."

Steve doesn't respond. He doesn't tell Natasha that he'd rather not date a couple. He's not even sure he wants to date _anyone_ , much less find himself in a triad. Triads get serious too quickly. How long had he, Bucky, and Peggy been together as a triad? Less than a year? They'd been planning on getting married after the war.

Now Steve is alone in an unfamiliar time and although he's getting caught up, he still feels out of place more often than not. When he visits Sam at the VA, he finds that perhaps his experience isn't all that different from any other soldier's, coming home from war. He wants to ask if Sam and his wingman were close in the same way Steve and Bucky were close, but he doesn't. It doesn't seem polite, even as desperately as Steve wants to know he and Sam have this in common as well. When Steve is about to leave Sam, he asks, "Do you want to grab dinner some time?"

Sam looks down as he smiles. "Yeah. I'd like that." When he looks up, Sam's smile goes a little crooked. "You mean as a date, right? 'Cause I don't wanna bother getting psyched up for a date with freaking _Captain America_ if I'm not even reading the signals right."

"Don't worry," Steve says, pushing Sam's shoulder as playfully as he can manage. "You're reading this right."

He and Sam share a grin as Steve leaves, feeling like maybe finally, something in his life is going right. When he gets home, he runs into his neighbor in the hall and he wonders if Sam would like her. 

Everything goes downhill pretty quickly after that. When Steve and Natasha need a place to hide from SHIELD, Sam is the first person Steve thinks of – not Tony Stark, not Bruce Banner, not Clint Barton. Practically all of the people Steve knows here in the 21st century, he knows through SHIELD. The only exception to this rule is Sam Wilson, so that's where Steve takes Natasha.

Sam takes them in, gives them shelter, and makes them breakfast. "Sorry," Steve says as he sits down in front of a plate of eggs. "This wasn't how I meant for us to share our first meal together."

"Don't worry about it," Sam says, pouring Steve a glass of orange juice. "I'm sure you'll make it up to me." Across the table, he winks at Natasha.

Natasha raises a brow at Sam, but the edges of her lips twitch upward. "I can see why you like him."

It takes Steve a moment to realize Natasha's talking to him about Sam. Steve fights the urge to blush, especially when he sees Sam grinning like he's won the lottery. He wants to ask Natasha about the arrow-shaped necklace around her neck and what it means about her availability for a relationship, but it feels weird to ask now, in front of Sam, when she's been wearing the necklace for months and Steve never asked before.

Steve wakes up on the shore of the Potomac, coughing water and looking up at both Natasha and Sam. He gasps for breath and lets both of them help him up. "Well, that went well, I think." Sam laughs. Natasha rolls her eyes.

Bucky's reappearance weighs heavily on Steve's mind and more than anything, he wants Bucky back. He wants to think that his need to have Bucky as a lover has faded, now that they're eighty years removed from their first kiss. He watches Natasha and Sam walk ahead of him, hand-in-hand and he wants, more than anything, to be able to let go of Bucky, to call the specter of his image nothing more than a ghost and throw himself wholeheartedly into a new relationship for a new time. 

When Natasha beckons him and says, "C'mon, Cap. Let yourself relax for once," Steve takes her advice. He lets himself have one night with her and Sam, and he tries to forget the past. Still, every time Sam's skin tastes different than Bucky's did, and every time Natasha's voice isn't _quite_ the same as Peggy's, Steve gets pulled out of the moment.

It's wonderful and terrible at the same time.

Steve never wants it to end. He wants to forget about the past and wake up between the two of them a new man, a different man. Steve wakes up, but he's still himself. He still remembers long moments held in Bucky's arm. He remembers the absolute heartbreak he had to set aside after Bucky fell, because he had a mission to accomplish and other people were counting on him to end the war.

Steve wonders if he'll ever have to watch Sam fall and he wonders if he'll survive it. Maybe next time it will be Natasha. Maybe Steve will jump after them next time, so he doesn't have to live with the guilt. Steve thinks about disappearing, about not letting Natasha or Sam come with him while he tracks Bucky down. He realizes he can't do that. He can't know them and not want to be there if they fall. Steve needs another chance to do it right and save them.

Bucky isn't the same man Steve remembers. Steve isn't the same man who watched his fiancee fall.

In the end, Natasha doesn't come with Steve to find Bucky. She has other lovers, other friendships, and herself, aside from SHIELD, to find. Sam does come, and Steve has to stop himself every step of the way so he doesn't try to convince Sam not to. If there's anyone Steve can trust to survive a fall, it has to be a man with wings, doesn't it?


End file.
